ASSIGNMENT

ON
CLASSROOM READING

SUBMITTED BY,

A.AKASH,

19BDEN03
 CLASSROOM READING

The first point to be noted when practicing reading in the classroom is that it is a

silent activity. Therefore silent reading should be encouraged in most cases, though the

teacher may sometimes need to read part of the text aloud. The students themselves should

not read aloud. Reading aloud prevents students from developing efficient reading strategies.

Another classroom procedure can consist of helping the student to time himself and

increase his reading speed little by little. It is necessary to reach a certain reading speed in

order to read efficiently. To say that reading is a silent and personal activity does not imply

that it only lends itself to individual work.

On the contrary, it is particularly interesting to encourage comparisons between

several interpretations of a text which will lead to discussion. Reading can be done as a class

activity but reading activities can also be devised to individualize students' work at home.

Instead of choosing one activity for the whole class, two or three sets of exercises of varying

difficulty can be prepared based on the same text so that each student can work at home at his

own level.

If the text is then to be discussed in the class, each group of students who have

worked on the same exercises will be able to talk about what they have done. This certainly

will be stimulating for the weaker students, while the better ones will not be held back.

If there is little teacher-control of the reading activity, then self-correcting exercise are

extremely useful. The students are able to evaluate their work and can try little by little to

improve their reading ability. They feel reassured and guided and using this type of material

is one of the best ways of building up the students’ confidence.

THE STUDENT-INVOLVED CLASSROOM LIBRARY

Instead of having children arrive in your classroom and expecting them to assimilate

your library organization, I propose you involve them in the process. After working with over

100 teachers in 10 different school settings, it is my experience that the student-involved

classroom library process increases the number of books children choose from their

classroom library. Dozens of informal e-mails and specific survey feedback from teachers

also report positive results. My favorite response came from a third-grade teacher, the grade

that feels the enormous effects of mandatory retention linked to high-stakes testing. The

teacher wrote that her children //lade their own library. They took ownership of it. They were

proud of their work and could find the books they wanted.

She explained that her library had been a "junk pile ," and she couldn’t' t understand

why students weren't reading. But she closed with these words:

"Now my kids read 24/7. Loved it!"

THE PLACE OF READING IN THE CURRICULUM

Reading was invented only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we

rearranged the very organization of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able

to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species. In fact reading is mostly

taken as a non-serious aspect. We read with what appears to be little effort and little planning.

And it is remarkable that so much of the world's population can read to some extent.

Human beings can read basic forms, read advertisements, read newspapers and use

basic reading skills in their work. Universal literacy is an ideal goal that is an ongoing

priority among UNESCO, nation states, and many non-governmental organizations, and

efforts need to be made to reduce illiteracy levels. It is also important that many people

around the world read in more than one language. Large populations of people have learned
to read in second or third languages for a variety of reasons, including interactions within and

across heterogeneous multilingual countries, large-scale immigration movements, global

transportation, advanced education opportunities and the spread of languages for wider

communication. Readers, who have learned to read in their first languages, have also learned

to be second language readers, often under very different circumstances.

One must read throughout the day because printed materials are all around us, and it

must be used in many more ways than we are aware of. Many of us also engage in reading

that may be quite demanding in educational, professional and occupational settings. It is a

fact of modem life that almost any issue or topic can be discussed, addressed, or argued from

multiple view points, and it is routinely our task to decide among these alternative sources of

information. How we learn to negotiate this world of print and achieve our goals is a large

part of many professional and academic lives.

Citizens of modem societies must be good readers to be successful. Reading skills do

not guarantee success for any one, but success is much harder to come by without being a

skilled reader. The advent of the computer and the internet does nothing to change this fact

about reading. If anything is to be said, electronic communication only increases the need for

effective reading skills and strategies as we try to cope with the large quantities of

information made available to us.

A very large percentage of people around the world also learn to read a second

language, usually as students in formal academic settings. Events over the past one hundred

years have placed greater demands on people to become literate in an L2. The 20th century

and early 21st century have been a time of massive migrations around the world as well as

growth in the use of world languages.

Many people have moved to new countries for various reasons. They and their

children have had to, and continue to, learn to function in societies and school systems where
their significant reading experiences are often primarily in a second language. The level of

expectation for a person to function well in a modem print environment is higher than ever

before.

Besides massive waves of migration and relocation, the rise of English as a global

language has had a major impact on educational systems around the world and the demand

for reading in a second language. In countries around the world, school systems require

students to learn English for access to information and for the eventual ability to compete

economically and professionally. For good or for bad, this situation reflects a reality of the

early 21st century. It is therefore an important societal responsibility to offer every person the

opportunity to become a skilled L2 reader.

Even reading in contexts outside the academic classroom, such as daily encounters

with newspapers and e-mails, or reading novels for entertainment, represent important

aspects of the development of academic reading skills.

Human beings started communicating with each other by gestures and sign language.

Then came spoken communication. Reading came at a very later stage when people started

developing graphic symbols for the words spoken by them. The development of script for a

language is always linked to civilization. The graphic representation of the words is a sign of

civilization. This can be ascertained from the fact that many languages spoken in the world

do not have a written script.

For example, the Tulu language does not have a script. Uniformity of language use

can be obtained only through reading and writing. The written form of the language helps to

develop a standard. The written word acts as a guardian of the culture of a race. The Chinese

script is a classic example of pictorial representation which reflects the culture of the race.

The media for mass communication, particularly, the television, has had a negative impact on

reading habits. Since the channels provide visual information, the reading habit is slowly
dying. The reading habit has changed from the print to the digital form. The reading

mechanism also changes with the focus on quickly reading the text in scroll messages. The

students need to be trained in this area which would provide ample scope for further research.

Reading is generally defined as a process that helps us to:

➢ Decode, decipher and identify the words in print

➢ Articulate, speak and pronounce the words in print and

➢ Understand, interpret and get across the meanings of the words/texts in print.

The processes listed in the first definition are generally done by the teacher for the

beginner who cannot identify letters and words. The second definition pertains to reading

aloud to develop fluency and good pronunciation. The last definition constitutes ‘silent

reading’ or reading for comprehension. This is the type of reading, which we normally do in

our daily life.